


It's a strange paradise

by viviandarkbloom



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 20:31:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1701569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viviandarkbloom/pseuds/viviandarkbloom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summer in New York. Tea on the rooftop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's a strange paradise

**Author's Note:**

> Written in between seasons 1 and 2 of the show.

**I.**

People who despised August in New York City were not real New Yorkers. Or so Joan Watson believed. For many residents, she knew, August is not a month, but rather a terrible state to be endured, comprised of heat, boredom, and stasis. Those who can afford to do so will flee as often as they can; those who cannot will suffer, Dante-like—for even at its worst New York was nothing if not educational on the human condition—on daily tours of hellish tedium. This was the popular misconception, at any rate. For Joan, August was different. It always had been and, now in particular, always would be. As a child she had savored the delicious anticipation of fall, the school year; the pavement under her feet no longer blistering but warmly reassuring. That sense of promise and possibility still existed for her.

August is a quiet miracle. During these warm, gauzy mornings, she takes her tea on the roof, with the bees thrumming and the light gliding into autumnal gold.  Even the party house was silent. All summer long she and Sherlock had endured the throbbing din emanating from a building down the block; every weekend was a 48-hour excursion into dance music. As a result, Sherlock despaired of the long-term effect of Nikki Minaj and the like upon his cherished bees and every Sunday morning he attempted to counteract this continual cacophony with some soothing, stirring Bach concertos.

During the week, however, the street is fairly quiet. Save this morning: The party house—who else can it be? Joan wonders bitterly—cranks up some music, but this time it’s something that subtly grabs her attention. It’s slow and hypnotic, and she can’t tell if the singer is male or female—in fact, she can’t even decipher the lyrics at first, but their drowsy simplicity pulls her in until she understand a repeated line: _it’s a strange paradise._ The persistent piano, the shimmering cymbal, the distorted guitar twang unravels the puzzle of August so tangibly that the overripe month, the too-sweet season falls in generous tribute at her feet.

Then, just as abruptly as it had begun, the song stops. Joan blinks, wondering if she has imagined the whole thing, or if Sherlock is experimenting on her by putting something in her tea. He wouldn’t, she thinks. Would he? No, he wouldn’t, she silently asserts.

But he would torture her with bad music. From the stairwell leading the roof, a whiny violin announces the beginning of “Come on, Eileen.”

“What the hell?” She glares accusingly at the stairwell, then panics—is he using again? What else could explain this? Then a memory of a high-school dance and a sickening concoction of vodka and Sunny D comes to mind. Just as the singer is moaning about poor old Johnny Ray, the song is mercifully snuffed into silence. Then a sharp, aching Paganini caprice arches through the air, and Joan smiles. Violins—there’s the connection. Someway, somehow, he’s working on something, teasing out a thread from a tangle of possibilities. Whether it pertains to the case they’re currently working on, or some unsolved frustration from years ago, she hasn’t the faintest idea. All she knows is that she’s beginning to see, with more urgency and clarity, patterns—and perhaps at this point they’re only _his_ patterns, but it’s a glorious affirmation of how far she’s come and a reminder of the promising road ahead. She’ll gladly take that.  

**II.**

Even in summer Gregson wears a dark blazer that makes his shoulders look heavy, as if he is one of those morally overburdened, angst-ridden angels from _Wings of Desire._ Joan imagines that he would make for a good if blunt angel, barking out brutal advice for his earthly charges. (“What the hell’s wrong with you? Get it together, for Christ’s sake.”) In an unexpected visit to the house he brings news in the form of flat folders filled with autopsy photos: Not surprisingly, Moriarty has escaped a state-of-the-art, maximum-security prison. Four guards are dead, one in critical condition.

The first guard died from a clever, homemade poison.

Even while scowling, Sherlock nods appreciatively, his hands flicker in ecstatic approval. “She is rather resourceful. A MacGuyver of death and destruction.”

Gregson and Joan stare at him.

“As you both well know, I do watch television and as a result of the relentless syndication of certain mediocrities passing as entertainment, the character is not unknown to me—“

Gregson clears his throat. “Moving on.”

The second died of asphyxiation from a plastic bag; how she got the bag, no one knows. The third is stabbed in the throat with a plastic spoon fashioned to a knifepoint. The fourth seems the luckiest: His neck was snapped—an instant death. As Joan examines the photo of the fourth guard, she cannot help but admire the efficient beauty, the clean merciful manner of death, for even in the deepest recess of her mind, she still thinks of herself as a doctor.

Her hand twitches. Ever since that incident, all too recent, when Sherlock persuaded her to dissect a corpse, she has suffered spasms in her right hand—a rekindling of muscle memory, that old love, that old skill. _You said you would never touch a scalpel again. And yet._

Of course, each and every barely perceptible, involuntary movement of her hand is indelibly recorded and filed away in the vast attic of Sherlock’s mind. She had noticed he noticed, and he had noticed that she noticed he noticed. It would indeed be comical save that it stifles him; he can only offer the tenderness of his considerate silence. He has a junkie’s sympathy for addictions of all kinds; he is a connoisseur of compulsion. And for her, he battles with his lack of tact.

Right now he’s frowning at her hand. Again.

“That one”—Gregson gestures at the photo of the last guard—“was a six-foot-seven, 250-pound martial arts expert. Former Navy SEAL.”

“Oh, dear.” Sherlock refocuses his attention on the photo. “That was the wrong approach altogether.”

Gregson squints at him.

“She so loves a challenge.”

**III.**

At night, the ghosts of Augusts past come to her in dreams. It seems odd to have one’s dreams adhere so strictly to the seasons, as if her subconscious mind can’t break free of a certain linearity, a hidebound duty to the everyday world. Why not dream of ice skating in Central Park, or the Iditarod across the frozen tundra? No, she dreams of the brick pathway that wound around her mother’s house, of running across it barefoot and so fast that she could hardly feel the heat scorching her soles, of the sleek, ancient clothesline towers that stood in every other yard including their own, their rusted and latticed outlines against a dusk tinged with purple and pink and gold. Her mother calling at her from the house: _Joan, Joanie_ , her voice clearer and louder with every call. 

“Joan, Joanie.”

The brute force of instinct rouses her. She’s awake and Moriarty is perched at the foot of her bed, on the bedframe, in the guise of a marvelous and malevolent angel, blonde hair feathering artfully like a thousand wings. But this is no _Wings of Desire._ Is it? Her throat is tight and dry, her pulse is out of control, and Joan is strangely, dizzyingly euphoric. _She has come, just for me._ Sherlock is not in the house. He has a full day planned: picking locks with Alfredo, followed, begrudgingly, by a meeting. She is afraid, but for all the wrong reasons.

“Joan,  Joanie,” Moriarty singsongs again. “Your friends call you that—and your family, as well. Don’t they?”

How quickly euphoria distends into nausea: the scary drop in the rollercoaster ride.  Sherlock had warned her. _You’ve a legitimate and quite dangerous enemy now, Watson,_ he said. Immediately following Moriarty’s arrest, Sherlock had arranged for Joan’s mother to be protected for an indeterminate time. First, he petitioned Detective Bell to follow Mrs. Watson, prompting a quietly frantic phone call from the object of surveillance to her daughter: _There is a strange man in a suit following me everywhere. Is he CIA or something? What are you mixed up in now?_

Later, Sherlock showed up unannounced at Mrs. Watson’s door, offering to teach her self-defense. Which prompted Phone Call Number 2 _: Your friend is here, Joan, and he has a giant baton. Is he on the drugs again?_

Moriarty notes the blatant fear on Joan’s face and looks surprised, almost genuinely concerned. “You don't think I'd hurt them, any of them, do you? Not really my style. I don't kill out of mere sloppy revenge when there's absolutely nothing tangible to gain, and there’s really nothing to gain by doing that, Joan.” She sighs. “No. It's not working for me—Joan. That begs a familiarity I've not yet ascended to. And it’s too everyday, too banal a name.”

Accustomed to Sherlock’s uniquely backhanded compliments and veiled insults, Joan snorts derisively. “Says the woman who went by _Irene._ ”

Moriarty seems pleased at the jibe. “There's life in you yet, old girl. But I mean no insult, really. The fact is merely that the commonplace does not suit you. You are not banal—nothing of a sort. No. Sherlock is right, of course. Watson you are, Watson you shall be, the once and future Watson—”

“What do you want?” Joan barely contains her anger, her fear, and whatever emotion lurking under her skin, the one remaining dangerously unnamed. 

“A nice cuppa, for a start, mum.” Moriarty's bastardized attempt at Cockney is a flight better than anything Sherlock has ever attempted. Gracefully she leaps from her perch extends a hand toward Joan, who is silently cursing the formless t-shirt, as vulnerable as a half-sloughed skin, that she sleeps in. “Join me?”

Joan folds her arms. “Sure. Tea with a murderer?”

“Rather, tea with a slice of lemon. Perhaps some biscuits.” Moriarty smiles brightly. “I brought some. But let me tell you something.”

Joan waits for it.

“Not even I, my dear, with all my resources and connections and cunning, can obtain a cronut.”

 **IV.**  

   Tea is on the rooftop. Joan is alternately suspicious and pleased. Suspicious because she believes Moriarty has been observing her, taking note of her August ritual. Pleased because—well, admit it, she thinks, it’s a beautiful morning and here is this woman so unlike anyone you’ve ever met, even Sherlock—

   It does not take much, but the soft light burnishes Moriarty’s hair; the murderer becomes deceptively angelic.

    She’s dangerous, Joan thinks, and you’ve never done dangerous things before. _Ah._ A pattern, bold and new, fits over her life and charges everything with a new meaning. Like the old charts she recalls from med school, the flimsy transparencies layered over a basic image of a skeleton: the organs, the lymphatic system, the muscular skeleton. She’s broken into cars, morgues, and has come face-to-face with all manner of criminals. Taking tea with a murderous genius seems merely another step along the road, of her progression—into what?

   Chivalrously, Moriarty holds out a chair for her and then pours the tea, which is very delicate and very clear.

   “Baihao Yinzhen,” Moriarty murmurs proudly, as if she herself had picked the tea leaves from a mountainside in China.

   “You can just say ‘white tea,’ you know.”

   “You’re a lousy date, Watson.”

   “Date?” Joan grimaces at the note of hysteria in her voice. “Is that what this is?”

   “Why, of course.” Moriarty’s hand brushes her shoulder. “What else could it be?”

   For all its brevity and gentleness, the touch is electric. Like the first awkward time she made love, like nothing she has felt in a long time, like nothing she has ever felt before—her mind gallops in circles while every synapse in her body, starved for meaningful contact, seems to react. Then she recoils in peremptory disgust, hoping that this emotion rains on the parade of delight that she experienced scant seconds ago.

   Moriarty’s first touch is a test run for a longer caress; her index finger rolls along Joan’s shoulder and slides playfully along the trapezoid muscle. “I’d like to paint you. Especially your hands—the sheer delicacy of them, those slender fingers—Bronzino would return from the dead for an opportunity like this.”

   “I’d like—“ Joan pauses. To not feel aroused?

   “What, Watson?”

   Joan sighs. “For this to all make sense.”

   “Things like this never make sense.” Moriarty abruptly stops caressing her and sits down. She sips her tea. “Don’t be Sherlock. Don’t ruin everything with a bloody puzzle.”

    Joan’s elegant fingers run rings, both counterclockwise and clockwise, around her own teacup.

   “Did you like my gift?”

   “What?”

   “The song I played yesterday morning.”

   “God. So that was you.”

   “Yes. Those people really need to learn to keep their doors locked.” Moriarty frowns, and Joan is struck by the transformation: She resembles an awkward schoolgirl, reluctantly fumbling for a truth that she secretly dreads. “Did you like it?”

   Joan is unsure about committing to the truth but as she hesitates, Moriarty’s iPhone marimbas.

   Moriarty pulls it out of a pocket and glares at it. “Damn.”

   “What?”

   “I do so apologize for cutting this short, but—I must go.”

   That’s when Joan notices at the other end of the rooftop the innocuous backpack loaded with grappling hooks and nylon rope. Idiot, she berates herself, not to have noticed this sooner. Then she imagines Moriarty in a picaresque of her own, scaling rooftops through the five boroughs and having all sorts of marvelous adventures. None, Joan’s imagination demands, that involve murder.

   Moriarty seizes her arm—firmly, urgently, but not painfully—and leans in for what appears to be a kiss. Joan’s mind flips through _no/yes/no/yes_ like a light switch tormented by a bored child. But Moriarty stops short, closes her eyes, and breathes deeply, as if taking in Joan through a pure, heavenly draught. “No, not yet.”

   “Hey—“ Joan begins in a protest of—anything, everything.

   It’s too late. Moriarty snatches the tin of biscuits and dashes across the rooftop.

**V.**

   “The rest of the day passed in a blur.”

   Ms. Hudson crosses her legs. “One of those clichés that’s always true, isn’t it?”

   Joan stretches out on the sofa. “Yeah.”

   It’s early evening. Sherlock is at his meeting. Ms. Hudson had arrived half an hour ago, with the intent of cleaning and tidying, but so far has done nothing but listen to Joan while pouring them both drams of an elderflower liqueur from a flask that Ms. Hudson always carries in her purse “for emergencies.”

   Ms. Hudson, Joan decides, would make a most excellent therapist.

   “The next thing I knew Gregson was here with about half a dozen squad cars, everyone’s shouting and running around with sniper rifles, then they start interrogating _me_ as if _I_ were the criminal, and Gregson called Sherlock—“

   Ms. Hudson hums sympathetically. “What was his reaction to all this?”

   “Strange. He seemed subdued at first—taking it all in, I guess. That she had been here. He paced around, he looked at his surveillance tapes—“

   Ms. Hudson stiffens and looks around the room surreptitiously.

   “Don’t worry, you look fantastic.”

   “Actually, my primary concern was more along the lines of having my privacy and basic human rights violated, but go on.”

   “She was on the tape. Making tea in our kitchen.” Joan neglects to mention that Moriarty had easily sussed out the camera; at one point she’s seen in a grainy, grinning closeup, giving a stiff handwave in the manner of the Queen.

   “Oh, God. He must have hated that, not only knowing that his sanctum sanctorum was penetrated, but—” Ms. Hudson hesitates.

   “What?”

   “Well, knowing she was here to see you. Just you. You’re her focus now, it seems.”

   “Yeah.”

   Ms. Hudson reclines in her chair.

   Drowsy August creeps along, silently running amok like a weed.

   “Did he say anything after seeing the tape?” Ms. Hudson asks, almost as an afterthought.

   “One thing: ‘As I said, Watson, she does so love a challenge.’”

   Joan does not mention the song. Nor that shortly before Ms. Hudson’s arrival she had googled the snippet of the lyrics that she remembered, and had gently touched the screen of her phone when the song’s title revealed itself to her.


End file.
